Journal

I decided...

I've decided this evening that for the first time in my life, I will caucus...

I'm going to participate in the start of the 2008 election.

Preparing for Shannon's Post Thanksgiving Dinner Thing

Last year, we started, what I hopes turns into a tradition, with Shannon's Mom's Family (Shannon's uncle and his family). This year, we are hosting the group. I've spent a large chunk of the day prepping for the gathering before going out to eat.

I went out and bought some food, wine, and etc.

And then proceeded to to prepare it. I took a lot of things that I would normally get all cut up, and did it myself. Broccoli, cauliflower, celery, honeydew melon. After I chopped it all up. I was left with a sink full of the unusable parts.

I then proceeded to make some Gruyère cheese puffs. It ended up being around 6 or so before I actually made dinner. Making the puffs for later is really hard...cause I tend to eat them. I think I had at least one from each batch.

I like where I am when I am preparing food. Music or podcasts playing and I'm right there in the moment. Not thinking about our finances, or work or any of the stressors in my life.

Tomorrow I have a bit of cleanup and setup to do before I'm done, but it shouldn't take to long. I can warm up the puffs in the oven when people are around. And I'll setup the various plates and what not. Vegetable, fruit, cheeses and bread..all good appetizers...

I had originally planned to make reservations at Christopher's, but due to a recent fire, they are currently out of commission. The other choices we had were not the route I wanted to go, or too expensive. We'll take our chances going to the Drake Diner...

I guess we'll see how it goes. Shannon's uncle works for the DOT Railroad, and when I was working up in Ames, we put a bid to redo their website... I never actually did it, since...well...the company I worked for, closed.

More Snippets

We went to Avenue Q at the Civic Center. We had front row seats...for whatever magical reason we were able to get them. It was the Sunday afternoon performance, so maybe that's why...The extra leg room was nice. The show was fun and funny. I laughed quite a bit and it reminded me about getting out of college and even now.

Over the last few weeks, I've watched my 401k loose about 7% of it's value, including about a 2% loss, just yesterday (since it's peak). I'm glad I don't need that money anytime soon, but it's still depressing to see. I guess it is a good time to buy? Let's hope so. I have been tracking it on Google Finance. It's been pretty handy...though I only use it over the other ones (that I've not tried) because I have a google account...

There are new pictures of Broderick have been posted.

George (the cat) has been a rotten little kitty. Early Monday morning, I woke up to George crawling between the sheet and the blanket over me, on his way to attack Gracie (the cat). Between the two of them, it's been a fairly regular wake up call at around 4:AM. Though shutting them out of the room, would also not be god, since George has what seems to be a separation anxiety and anytime you close a door (bathroom, etc), he'll paw at the door from the other side. This morning wasn't so bad, since I think I only just barely woke up (George ran across the bed)...but it is getting annoying.

Shepherd's Pie

It was once again movie night. Being our turn to host, I decided to make a Shepherd's Pie.

I followed a basic recipe from Cook's Illustrated, but modified it with a few ideas. Basically it came down to making mashed potatoes, cooking the meat, resting it, using the same pan to make the sauce (garlic, onions, then flour and tomato paste), juicing up the sauce (chicken stock, Worcestershire sauce). Reducing it a bit, adding the meat back, adding the veggies (carrots, peas and corn). Taking the mixture and put it in a baking pan, cover it with the mashed potatoes. Bake it for a while (350). Take it out, cover it with cheese and broil it for a few minutes.

It turned out pretty good, though I should've cooked the onions for less time and added less tomato paste (gave it too much of a tomato flavor). The Hettinger's seemed to enjoy it too.

We watched Sullivan's Travels. It was...pretty funny. There were times where I thought that it was a very stereotypical portrayal of people, and then others, it seemed very real. It ended up having a fairly cheesy ending, but it was good over all.

Visiting Boone

Last night we headed up to Boone to visit Jimmy and Gina at their house. They were having a little get together with their neighbors and some other friends. Jimmy made some of his chili and other people brought over several things. It was quite the setup. Jimmy made chili...a hotter one and a mild one. Both meaty and good. The hotter one and a building heat, where it didn't scortch at first, but the more you ate, the more residual heat you felt.

It was quite the crew. A few from the past, but mostly just neighbors and former neighbors. It was nice. We talked about lots of things over the course of the night and lots of good food. We talked about things ranging from marriage laws to immigration to computers. It was interesting.

We had a good time. Left around one in the morning.

I did make Nuclear Brownies and they were fairly popular.

An eventful weekend

So Friday, early in the day, Brandon got a call from Val and headed home. After hours of no news, I got a call from Brandon around 3 or so, that they were heading to the hospital. They didn't know what, for certain, was happening, but they'd let me know.

So time passed, we got ready to go to Chris and Holly's Halloween Shindig. We dressed up as relatively lame versions of Piglet and Pooh...

The party was very fun. I made a pumpkin bourbon cheesecake. It turned out very well, and people seemed to enjoy the cheesecake. Not bad for a first time. They really went all out with the party, lots of food, lots of fun and quite a bit of silly costumes.

A bit later, Brandon called to announce the birth of his son. Woo!

The party eventually died down, Shannon headed home, since she had to work in the morning. Then the Lan Party began.

Quite a few of us played Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. It started off being fun, and then kind of was not. Dusty and Ryan, who play it quite a bit, were one the same team, and it went from a balanced game, to a not at all balanced. Honestly it wasn't fun at all. It's not that I don't like loosing, I don't like being dominated...especially when the teams are 2 (Dusty and Ryan) vs the rest of us. Sounds fair...but it still wasn't, since 2 of us, for certain, hadn't played before that day. It's kind of hard to figure stuff out and be in competition with good people. Anyways, they broke apart the team, and it started to be fun again. Some of the controls of Quake Wars were kind of awkward, I thought, but maybe I just need to get used to it.

Around 3:30 AM or so, Dave drove me home, and I went to bed.

Around 7:AM, I got up, showered and got ready for Jimmy to show up to fix the roof. He showed up a little bit after 8 and got to work. I spent a good chunk of the day catching up on TV and occasionally napping. Eventually Shannon came home, and we got ready to head down to Lutheran Hospital to visit the Boelmans. Broderick slept in my arms for a good two hours, before it was time for his feeding and for us to go. It was nice to see them and they seemed to be very happy.

We headed home, and I pretty quickly fell asleep...3 hours of sleep will do that.

Sunday we headed out to the Des Moines Community Orchestra to see Holly play. They had a movie program. I did wonder why they didn't have any Danny Elfman, but it was still a really good program and fun to listen too. Afterwards we headed over to Macaroni Grill with the Hettingers and Holly's mom.

Busy busy weekend.

Today...good lord I didn't understand how much work that Brandon does...Not having him and not being able to tell people to wait for him to get back has been very stressful. I didn't get an ounce of project work done. I switched from answering questions, to supporting benefits, to answering more questions, to supporting the intranet, back to benefits. It is kind of silly. Anyways, I hope I don't need his help too much, the 3 weeks that he's taking off should be his own...

Starting with Today and going backwards...and then forward

I am in the process of making my first cheesecake....It is time consuming, but it smells like it will turn out well. It has the flavor of pumpkin and burbon and I hope turns out well. Long cooktime, long cool time, even before I can stick it in the fridge.

Yesterday, Iowa Health Home Care called and told me that my CPAP was back in working order, and because I left work late last night, I headed out this morning to pick it up. I still think their new building is buried in the depths of a maze. It is kind of annoying. But I got a new water chamber that has a one way valve, to help prevent any water getting into the chamber...kinda neat.

This past Sunday, we stripped off the wallpaper divider in the dining room...our first try didn't lead to much in the way of results, but after consulting the intertubes, we made much better progress. We do have some clean up work to do with little bits of whatever the heck is left, but it should be easier.

This past Saturday we trimmed bushes and picked some weeds.

Shannon did have to nag me to do both...but I guess it was good to do. Painting is next. Starting off with ceilings, priming the dining room walls and then moving on to the colors that Shannon picked and I didn't veto.

This weekend is gonna be busy. Friday night, Chris and Holly are hosting the Halloween party, should be a good time. Afterwards, Chris is having a mini-LAN party, which, as I understand, goes through Saturday. Sunday, is the Des Moines Community Orchestra's Fall Concert, which Holly is in. Should be a good time.

quick update before a real update...

Got an email from my dad earlier that stated that Joseph will be getting an honorable discharge from his obligations to the National Guard and the US Army...Though my dad also said he wasn't sure how long this was going to take (up to a month).

I have mixed feelings, but I identify with the feelings and it makes me think of how I (and Shannon too) do things to avoid large amounts of people that we don't know...especially when you have to actually interact socially.

Anyways, I'm happy he's coming home, I'm happy that he's trying to take positive out of this, and I'm also said that he couldn't complete it, since it really seemed like it was something that he would've liked to do.

Food, Music and Kids, in that order

So yesterday afternoon, we headed over to Cedar Rapids to go to the CR Symphony's presentation Masterworks II: Asia Minor. It featured the Crown of India Suite (Elgar), Flute Concerto (Chesky), and Scheherazade, Op. 35 (Rimsky-Korsakov).

We met up with the Mattas, and left Jenny's mom with Taylor and Cali, while we headed to downtown Cedar Rapids. Both Shannon and I noticed that there has quite a bit of revitalization going on to the downtown area. Many new (to us) shops stores and what not, including Blend.

So Blend is a fairly modern looking restaurant. including a waterfall wall...which, when I first entered the restaurant had the faint smell of chlorine, but I may have been imagining things, cause nobody else did. We arrived shortly before six, and even though the restaurant was mostly empty, we had to wait. Nathan did notice that they had a lot of reservations at 6 and beyond that, so I guess it did explain that, but I'm just a fan where people just reserve a table or two for walk up custom...sometimes you don't know where you'll be going (we sure didn't). We were seated in a relatively short amount of time.

The tables were very angular in their appearance. They were setup in a fashion where the corners of the tables were uncovered, but the rest were with a white table cloths, to create right angles. The napkins were also folded in right angled triangles too. It was very pleasing to my eye...since I'm a fan of things like that (it makes my brain feel comfortable). The only thing that distracted me, was that my place setting was a little off (the spoon placement didn't work for me). I think it only stood out, because the rest of the placement of things seemed relatively perfect.

Service was relatively quick and she seemed nice.

I ordered the only appetizer, which they describe as: Pork confit and ginger spiced carrots in crispy wonton with caramelized cabbage, and sweet Chinese mustard aioli. This was interesting, the pork wontons were spicy and to the left, there was a salad mix in middle that was sweet, and to the right it was vinegary. Separately, the pork wontons were good, but the rest was ok. but in concert, and concept I think it was pretty good.

For our main course, Shannon ordered the Seared Sea Scallops with celeriac and Yukon gold potato pave, brown butter roasted Acorn squash, watercress-pecan slaw, pickled red pepper, and a creamy apple-fennel puree. Jenny had the Pan seared Pork Medallions with red wine-Amerena cherry risotto, roasted garlic-lemon zest green beans, local field greens with hot mustard vinaigrette, and a porcini pan sauce. Nathan had Belgium ale brined Airline Chicken breast with bacon-cider sweet potato hash, tarragon creamed Brussels sprouts, caramelized parsnips, and a dark roasted sweet onion puree. I had White truffle and Panko crusted Veal Scalloppine with pancetta and Taleggio cheese smashed new potatoes, juniper and caraway roasted root vegetables, and roma tomato potage. The ladies ordered a mixed greens salad and the fellas ordered Roasted Pheasant soup.

The fennel in the soup made it. The broth was very good, a nice mixed of flavors. Nathan said the roast pheasant wasn't a very good example, and it could've been turkey or any other roasted bird. I don't have much experience with pheasant, so I couldn't state one way or the other.

So the tastes and the flavors ranged. I thought my veal and the potatoes beneath it was pretty good, though the Panko crust on the bottom of the veal was kinda soggy because of the potatoes. Shannon's Scallops were good and the potatoe pave was also very nice. Nathan thought his meal was pretty good, except for the chicken, which was pretty bland. Jenny's pork was...well..it had no taste at all. She said the rest of the meal around the pork was pretty good.

For dessert, Shannon and Jenny both had a warm chocolate thing (I forget), I had a carrot cake and Nathan had Creme Brulée. The chocolate thing was very good, along with the Creme Brulée. The carrot cake...was...not but not really carrot like. It had orange zest in it...and..well...that was pretty much the only thing you could taste in the cake. The frosting was nice though.

Overall it was pretty good. Though I think a little overpriced. We got out of there (including two glasses of wine) for just under 100$, excluding tip.

We walked over to the Paramount Theatre and up to our seats. The music was pretty good. The Flute Concerto was a bit odd, but apparently it was the second time it had been performed. I was interesting and often times went with threads of music that were very odd together and then joined and then got very odd again. I did bring up Christian Tiemeyer, and I am still curious what happened to him. Their site said he retired... My older sister was friends with his daughter and I went to many many concerts under his 20 year stint as the music director.

Afterwards, we headed back to the Mattas and started to watch the the Boston Red Sox whoop on the Cleveland Indians (Jenny's a big BoSox fan). Shannon went up to bed and the rest of us finished the game. I started to fall asleep around the 7th inning...but it finished up pretty quickly...

We woke up the next morning, had some freshly made biscuits. Nathan then got ready to take the girls to a Halloween thing at Usher's Ferry. Both had homemade costumes. Taylor was Snow White and Cali was Cinderella. Very cute.

We left for home as they left for Usher's Ferry.

We stopped at the Williamsburg Tanger Factory Outlet, ate lunch, and wandered around a bit...didn't buy anything. We looked at some cooking stuff...meh.

And then we finished our trip home. Fun weekend.